The English Group has always kept a scrapbook of resources that we find inspiring. We now include this within our website in the form of a blog and, from now on, will add to it on an ongoing basis. The directory showcases graphic design, art, books, magazines, film and music, photography, portraits, fashion, architecture, interiors, hotels and travel, products & toys - alongside The English Group's own categories, ‘Travelling’ and 'Our Work' (‘Our Print’ and ‘Our Websites’), which illustrate the team's own travels and a full chronological listing of the agency's creative work.

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— Sightseers

A cross between Mike Leigh’s Nuts in May and Terence Malick’s Badlands, Sightseers is the latest film by that artful dodger Ben Wheatley. Ever since its debut in Cannes there have been a number of very different posters for his new film, ranging from the mysterious to the cartoony, but the German poster, released last week, gets its blackly comic tone (“Ein Meisterwerk des Schwarzen Humors” as the pull quote promises) just right with the first knitted poster I’ve ever seen. Black comedy in multi-colours.

I tried to find out who the designer, and more importantly the knitter, were for the poster, to no avail. For the life of me I can’t tell if the poster was actually knitted or created digitally. If you look at it in extreme close-up you can see what looks like digital cloning of certain areas, but then you notice tiny differences (which again could have been added digitally to fool people like me) which make you think that it was in fact knitted by hand, hopefully by an old lady in Baden-Baden.

Knitting is an important theme of the film, encompassing knitted lingerie, knitting needles as deadly weapons, and a lovely selection of patterned sweaters (or jumpers as we call them in England). A recent New Yorkerarticle on the British obsession with Danish television (The Killing, Borgenetc.), also brings up the current British sweater-fixation. At a London viewing party for the premiere of the third season of The Killing fans took part in a “best jumper” contest.

The poster nicely conveys Wheatley’s signature mix of quaint and queasy, capturing all the homespun elements of the film, and adding two eruptions of blood, one knitted and one real (well, hopefully not real, but you know what I mean.)

The “real-life” addition of the blood also seems to nod to the three-dimensional needle in the Fargo poster (which I’ve featured beneath the close ups of the knitted illustration).

In the UK, Sightseers was publicized with more jokey character posters, though you can see that sweaters still play a big role.

The French poster uses a drawing by Wheatley himself (one he did for the cast and crew t-shirts according to his and his wife and co-conspirator Amy Jump’s blog Mr and Mrs Wheatley).

Though the first French poster released for Cannes promised something rather less comic – and clearly communicates a far more overt sense of foreboding.

One last thing to note about the German poster is the prominence it gives to the voice talents for the dubbed version who are well known actors and comedians in Germany.